Page 65 of Returned to the Vissigroth
I didn't have a light, but I didn't need one. The hallway I entered was lit up enough by the torches of slain dragoons to take in the carnage. My heart sank. Dragoons and Eulachs were entangledin a macabre dance, lying dead on the ground where they had fallen.
"Gods," Myccael muttered as he followed me up. He grabbed a fallen torch, and I followed his example. We didn't give Darryck any time to process the area. I simply handed him a torch, and together, we hurried down what appeared to be a long hallway. Save for quick glimpses, we didn't bother looking into the rooms where the doors stood open. We kept moving forward, through the corridor that was littered with the fallen.
Dragoons and Eulachs. Their blood slicked the floor in long streaks where bodies had either been dragged or the dying had attempted to drag themselves. Myccael knelt by one of the corpses, fingers brushing over the ruined insignia of a Legion blade.
“Surnak,” he said quietly. The name landed like a hammer. He had been the leader of the Dragoons. If he had fallen… our seffies were in dire danger.
Darryck swore under his breath, pacing ahead with fire in his eyes. I didn’t say a word. Couldn’t. Because the only thing I saw was Daphne’s face behind my eyes. Pale and determined. Brave, but not invincible. I turned, squinting further down, where the torchlight didn't quite reach. I moved forward. A trail of crushed dust and gouged stone, leading away from the carnage. Narrow, just wide enough for a few people side-by-side. Small bootprints, lighter than the others.
“I’ve got their path,” I called.
More dragoons were climbing up behind us, their armor clinking quietly in the strained silence. Myccael gave a sharp nod andmotioned for Ekkarn to move up and secure the area, while we kept advancing.
The tunnel wound downward, the air growing damper and tighter with every step. Myccael pulled a stronger torch from his belt. Its light hit a smear of blood on the wall—smeared in a handprint.
“Someone was dragged,” he muttered.
“Ney,” I said, crouching to examine the ground. “They were running. See here? Their weight shifts forward. They were being chased.”
“And then they chose this tunnel,” Darryck added, pointing to where the path narrowed even more.
The walls turned organic here, less carved, more natural. We passed through a narrow choke point, our shoulders brushing the sides, and emerged into a wider cavern. My torchlight hit the stone just ahead and flared against it, columns, dozens of them, rising like petrified trees into the shadowed ceiling above.
“By Grandyr,” Myccael breathed.
It looked like a sanctuary and reminded me eerily of what Niara had shown me of the Zuten's underwater world. Benches, fractured and toppled. A dais at the far end. Etchings in the columns, glowing faintly as if they remembered the light. Just like before, the ground here was littered with the dead. The dragoons had slain at least a hundred Eulachs, if not more, but the twenty males had been outmatched and killed.
"Oksana!" Myccael exclaimed, and I rose from where I kneeled by the body of a fallen dragoon, whose name tag readZhoran. Ididn't remember meeting him, but I had seen him around, just like the others.
Darryck and I moved quickly to Myccael's side and found him clutching a piece of fabric in his hands. "This is Oksana's."
"She must have left it to show us that they went this way," Darryck concluded, and I agreed. My daughter-in-law was one clever lady.
“They were here. They ran this way.” Myccael’s expression hardened.
A dragoon scout jogged in from behind. “Susserayn, more troops have arrived above. Reinforcements from Bantahar. Should we pull back and regroup?”
“Ney,” I said before Myccael could speak. “Not until we find them. And not while they’re still down here.”
"This ends now, today. Have the troops keep coming down, but do not send less than forty in a group at any time," Myccael ordered. Then he waved us on, down the narrow path our seffies had gone. He was enraged. By Grandyr, we all were, but this was not the way we had planned on fighting the Eulachs. They were forcing our hand, causing us to send scattered groups of dragoons down. The end was already written on the walls; we would slay every single Eulach, but in the process, we would lose many loyal dragoons. Too many.
I had no doubt that the dragoons had given their lives to protect our seffies so they could get away, but now they were alone. There were no more protectors with them. They were all alone against a foe that had slain countless dragoons in full body armor.
"Susserayn, wait," Ekkarn called out. He was kneeling by the fallen, his face furrowed.
"There is no time," Myccael declared impatiently.
"Susserayn, look, neither these males nor the Eulachs died from sword wounds or claws," Ekkarn stood his ground.
Every fiber in my being itched to get to Daphne, to find and protect her before reprimanding her for coming down here alone, but Ekkarn's urgency got to me, and I walked over.
He was right. These males didn't die from blades.
"Snyg, that's the same wounds the victims at Bantahar bore," Myccael said.
"And whoever wielded this weapon didn't care who they killed, Leanders or Eulachs," Darryck added darkly.
He was right, too. Whoever was behind this, the Eulachs were just collateral damage to them.
